


It's Nae What You Think

by MaevesChild



Series: Through the Eluvian [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cuddle Porn, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3760534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaevesChild/pseuds/MaevesChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Griffon Wing Keep is in the arse end of nowhere.  Shit happens.  Enchanter Ellendra and Knight-Captain Rylen are both good at fixing things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Nae What You Think

They sent Ellendra to Griffon Wing Keep.  

It was in the arse end of the Western Approach overlooking a chasm of black Blighted sand. It smelled of sweat, sulfur and quillback dung.  During the day, it was dry, so dry and hot your eyelids felt sweaty and dusty all at once.  

At night it was frigid.  It was so cold it was like the heat was sucked right out of your marrow and the wisps of moisture the air managed to hold during the day condensed on to everything.  The stone was slippery and everything was damp, making the cold all the sharper.

Ellendra knew she was needed the moment she set foot in the fortress.  There were wounds, illnesses and burns that magic was best suited to cure. 

She wasn't surprised to see a Templar in charge.  He wasn't a rebel Templar but more like she was, not wanting to get dragged into the fray but willing to get her hands dirty when needed.  He had a lovely Starkhaven accent and the demeanor of a farmer, not a Knight.  He treated everyone with the same blunt but jovial manner and she liked him immediately.

She was the only mage assigned here and he seemed a bit put off at first.  Some Templars were like that, having listened to all those years of sermons.  It was disappointing, but not unexpected.

It had been midmorning when a scout dragged herself back to the Keep, bloody and battered.  A mercenary band was to blame, White Claw bastards in the employ of those cultists.  They'd killed her two companions and the scout would likely lose her leg.  There was no spell that could undo what the desert had done.  

Captain Rylen took a patrol to go deal with it.  They'd been gone for hours. The sun was down. It was starting to get cold.

Ellendra helped the scout's pain as best she could, but she was in the Maker's hands now.   Most of the Keep was asleep but for the watch and an elven scout on the parapets.  Ellendra washed her hands in the torchlight, organized her herbs and books and fretted nervously about what was taking so blasted long.

She liked Rylen, even if he was afraid of her magic.  He was a good man and a better Captain and everyone adored him.  If something happened, this place would fall to ruin.

She heard the shouting, the elven voice carrying out for the gate to be opened.  Ellendra ran behind the soldiers, getting there just as they wrenched the heavy doors apart.  

Ten soldiers had gone out.  

One, two, three, four, five, six.  

Cuts, bruises.  Nothing they even needed her for. Their swords were bloody.  The spatter on their armor was not theirs.  Her heart was pounding.  

Seven.  A bloody gash across his forehead.  Lots of blood, but it looked worse than it was; she could tell right away. Some water and some linen. He'd be fine.

Eight and nine; hale enough to carry a makeshift stretcher between them.  Ten was on the stretcher, alive but unconscious, pale without any visible injuries save a distinct reddened swelling on one arm, hanging slack at the soldier's side.

Only one thing caused that mark.  Scorpion.  Normally that caused pain or numbness, a muscle spasm of two if you were unlucky.  But rarely, some had reactions.  Bad ones.

Ten was Rylen.  

She shooed the others away, taking charge.  She'd been with them a few weeks, but they deferred to her.  She saved Morris from the gripe when he couldn't keep down water.  She knit the bone in Carlasin's leg.  She stopped the bleeding and saved Ithoria's eye.  She knew her business.

Ellendra pressed her fingers against Rylen's neck.  His pulse was soft but steady.  His breathing was labored.  This she could fix.

There was no official infirmary; the barracks were full and his quarters were up a flight of stairs.  Her room was right there, right next to the triage area in the lower courtyard.  It would do.

They laid him on her pallet, his head lolling to the side.  She unfastened his breastplate and put her hands over his heart.  She needed to remind his body not to overreact.  It was little enough effort before the mana started to flow, warmth spreading out from the tips of her fingers, through the heart of her palms.  She could feel the magic soaking into his skin, telling his nerves to relax, his muscles to calm, his blood to stand down the attack.    

She took that moment to really look at him.  She hadn't allowed herself before, what with his immediate nervousness about her.  He had interesting tattoos, black lines running over his chin, a curved line along his nostril and up the length of his nose.  Underneath the ink, there were scars.  Fine, thin, very old scars.  She wondered where they came from.

With a gasp, Rylen tried to sit up against her, the weight of her hands pressed against his chest keeping him on his back.  The whites of his eyes flashed.

"What in the Maker's," he began, coughed.  Ellendra sat back, pulling her hands in her lap.  Rylen grabbed his stung arm and clutched at it.

"Bark scorpion," he muttered.  "Just wee little things that sting the men and set them tae scream like school girls.  Nae seen them take a man down before."

Ellendra smiled and shrugged.  "It happens."  

"Figures," Rylen muttered.  "I won't be able to tell them they're being tits when they scream now."  He squeezed his arm and winced.  "I cannae understand how it can be numb and hurt at the same time."

"Let me take a look."  Ellendra took his arm into her hands.  His skin was so cold, but her hands were warm.  She sent a burst of mana into his arm.  He didn't need it, but she knew there was much to be said for comfort.  Not all hurts were of only the body.

By now, the rest of the patrol had found their way out, leaving them alone.  It wasn't the first time Ellendra had a Templar in her bed, but it was the first time she was certain he did not want to be there.  

Want or no, he wasn't going anywhere until she was sure this was under control.

"Is that better?" She tried to sound non-threatening.  She knew her fellow mages had earned the fear of the Templars and everyone else.  It wasn't his fault.

Rylen nodded.  She could feel him trembling.  She worried she was making him more frightened just being so close, but she couldn't heal him from across the room.  

"Thank ye, I didnae know if I would wake again."  In his distress, his brogue seemed to be thicker.  He shivered in earnest.  She reached for the linens, pulling them up over him, chainmail and all.

"I'd like you to stay here, until morning at least.  I need to be certain you won't have another reaction," Ellendra explained.

He nodded without hesitation.  She started to stand.  She'd find herself a blanket, curl up in the the chair to watch him.  He stopped her, his uninjured hand on her arm.  

"Daen't go," he said, his finger gentle on her forearm.  

"I'm not leaving," she said.  "I'll be right he-"

He cut her off.  "Nae, right here.  You're warm.  I have nae been this cold in all my life."  He swallowed.  "I know I hae been unfriendly, but it's nae what your thinking."

Ellendra tilted her head questioningly.

Rylen looked sheepish.  "I nae know how to behave with mages or pretty ladies these days and ye are both.  I didnae want to offend ye.  Ma mouth can be coarser than I mean it ta."

"Oh Rylen."  Ellendra put her hand on his chest again.  "I thought I frightened you."

"You dae," he admitted.  "But nae why you think."  He looked away for a moment but seemed to force his eyes back.  He carefully met her eyes.  "Please.  Stay."

The pallet was small, but not so much smaller than her bed at the Circle she shared more than once with Mattrin.  Rylen shifted over and she slipped under the linens beside him, carefully tucking herself against his uninjured arm.  He cradled his hurt arm across his belly.  

Ellendra laid her fingertips on the sting again, sending another unnecessary soothing wave of mana over his skin.  He made a little pleased noise and pulled her tighter against him.

Slowly, his trembling and shivering lessened and eventually stopped.  He sagged against her.  

"Warm enough?" she asked, the cadence of his breathing letting her know he hadn't yet drifted into sleep.

"Finally," he said.  Ellendra snuggled up against him, letting her body heat warm and comfort him.  She was a healer.  She was healing him.  

_This is what he needs,_  she told herself.   _Its not for me._   

She left her arm across him and tried to remember why she shouldn't enjoy the feeling of his arm around her shoulders.  She couldn't think of a reason.  She closed her eyes.  

His eyes were blue.  Greenish a bit.

Ellendra felt his head turn.  He wriggled it and his helmet slipped off on to the floor with a clang.

He loosed an embarrassed chuckle.  "Sorry.  It nae comfortable to sleep in a metal hat."

She couldn't help but smile and she could hear it in her own voice.  "I can imagine."

Rylen turned his head toward her.  His lips gently brushed her forehead and he sighed.  Without another word, only a slight adjustment of his weight, he settled into sleep.  His breathing was slow and steady, but not labored.  He'd be fine.

She knew she could slip away now, find her own place to sleep.  There were always things she could do until dawn.  But where better to keep an eye on him than from up close?

Ellendra wrapped a little tendril of her magic around him, a little feeler to alert her if anything changed, if his body began to fight too hard against the venom again.  She closed her eyes, her face in the crook of his shoulder.  

Under her ear, she could hear his heart beating, slow and steady and unafraid.


End file.
